[LINK] The PLAN, and broadband speeds?

[David Lochrin]

On Friday 22 June 2007 16:05, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 13:10 +1000, David Lochrin wrote:
> >    Yes, but back here on planet Earth actual decisions have to be made
> > on the basis of some remote contact with cost & benefit.
>
> And there speaks the mind that would not have bothered sending anyone to
> the moon.
>
> There was no direct benefit from that either, and precious few direct
> "beneficiaries", but it spun off technologies that changed the world.  [...]

   I wasn't going to buy back into this discussion, but....

   The moon program was not begun because it would spin off anything useful.  If Pres. Kennedy had not given it the go-ahead the lack of spinoff technologies, even in the medium term, would have been inconsequential because they (or similar) would have been developed anyway and probably for a lot less money.

   The moon program was begun for a number of reasons, which we could doubtless argue about.  But the main one was that Russia had very much alarmed the U.S. by being first into space during the Cold War, and the U.S. perceived they needed to catch up for both military and propaganda reasons.

   It was also a challenging and mind-expanding project for mankind, and that was a big part of how it was sold.  I supported it then for that reason, and I support the Mars program now for the same reason.

   The fact that we need justification to spend large amounts of money does not rule out imaginative efforts such as the moon program or the Hubble telescope.  But spending large amounts of money on the basis of pure faith without one shred of concrete justification and substantial evidence to the contrary is simply irresponsible, particularly when it's a government spending taxpayers' money.

David